LGBT and the law

Authoritative opinion

The Constitutional Court issued an explanation regarding the scandalous law banning the dissemination of information promoting non-traditional sexual relationships among minors (commonly known as the “law banning the promotion of homosexuality”). The reason for clarification was the appeal to the Constitutional Court by LGBT activists Nikolai Alekseev, Yaroslav Yevtushenko and Dmitry Isakov: in accordance with this law, they were found guilty of an offense for holding public events. The law introduced Article 6.21 into the Code of Administrative Offenses - “ Propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors ”, which carries a fine of four to five thousand rubles. Alekseev and Yevtushenko became the first in the country to be convicted under this law - for single pickets near the children's library building in Arkhangelsk with a poster “ Gay propaganda does not exist. People don't become gay, they are born gay! "(The Arkhangelsk region was one of the first regions where this law was adopted even before consideration in the Duma). Isakov, who held a single picket in Kazan, received his fine due to the fact that a teenager from Arkhangelsk, Erik Fedoseev, read about this picket on the Internet and wrote a statement to the police. All three activists filed complaints with the European Court of Human Rights.

The Constitutional Court considered the law and the article introduced into the Code of Administrative Offenses to not contradict the Constitution. But in addition, the judge of the Constitutional Court Nikolai Bondar, commenting on the court’s position, stated that the article “does not prevent an impartial public discussion of the legal status of sexual minorities, including through holding public events in the manner prescribed by law. However, the relevant activities should not involve minors, and the information disseminated should not be targeted at them .”

Nikolai Alekseev, one of the most active figures in the Moscow LGBT movement , has already called this clarification by the Constitutional Court a serious breakthrough in the fight for LGBT rights. Natalya Tsymbalova, coordinator of the Alliance of Heterosexuals for LGBT Equality, agrees with him: “ The ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation seems to me to be a very important milestone in the fight for the right to freedom of assembly of the LGBT community ,” she said, but added that “ ideally, the court should have recognize the notorious law on “ gay propaganda ” as unconstitutional ,” but agreed that “ nobody, of course, expected such a demarche from him in the current political situation .” Nevertheless, according to her, it is important that “ the court prohibited broad interpretation of the law, which is often done in our country by various political schemers and homophobes. Now it is explicitly stated that the law cannot be a basis for banning public rallies, discussions and other events in defense of LGBT rights .”

Nevertheless, Tsymbalova, who has extensive experience in holding actions in defense of LGBT people and negotiating with the St. Petersburg administration, noted that “ the practice of St. Petersburg is such that our rights to freedom of assembly are often violated by the authorities not at all on the basis of the law on “ gay propaganda .” In St. Petersburg, this law was rarely applied; here, much more often, officials come up with various other loopholes to refuse approval of shares. For example, in February 2013, with the support of the Democratic St. Petersburg coalition, we tried to organize a rally against the law on “ gay propaganda ,” which was then still a bill and was being considered in the next reading by the State Duma. The authorities refused to approve this rally for us in 20 (twenty!) different places, coming up with a variety of excuses (such as repair work, the proximity of court buildings, the fact that we would allegedly disturb passersby and similar fictions). Obviously, the ban on the rally was a political decision, but the law on propaganda did not figure in any way in the refusals .”

Another St. Petersburg activist, gender researcher Valery Sozaev, in a conversation with OVD-Info, also noted that, despite what the Constitutional Court says, “ there is real practice on the ground .” He stated that in addition to banning rallies, some government officials resort to outright provocation to disrupt LGBT events: for example, deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly Vitaly Milonov, known for his fierce fight against LGBT people, and his assistant Anatoly Artyukh “constantly bring minors to our rallies for the purpose of provocations. Milonov comes with his own children to the actions of LGBT activists , thus provoking law enforcement officers and the police to stop these actions .” Sozaev suspects that law enforcement practice will change little with the advent of the Constitutional Court’s clarification: “ There were decisions of the Constitutional Court concerning regional laws - Arkhangelsk, St. Petersburg, Kostroma. LGBT activists take advantage of these regulations, but there is no point in doing so either. ».

Serious concern

Almost simultaneously with the appearance of the explanation of the Constitutional Court, LGBT actions in Russian cities were given attention by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which condemned Russia for failure to comply with the verdicts of the ECHR. Committee members “expressed serious concern that most of the notifications submitted in Moscow, St. Petersburg , Kostroma and Arkhangelsk from July 1, 2013 to May 1, 2014, to hold public events ... were refused on the basis of federal law, prohibiting “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among minors, despite assurances from the Russian authorities at the 1179th meeting (September 2013) (on human rights) that this federal law does not imply interference in such events.” In this regard, the Committee called on the Russian authorities to provide “updated information, including statistical data, on current practices relating to the organization of public events... from 1 May 2014 to 1 February 2015.” The Committee “noted with great regret that the exercise of the fundamental right of assembly is insufficiently recognized and protected by the Russian authorities” and demanded that the necessary measures, “including educational ones,” be taken to rectify the situation.

Tsymbalova noted that “ The Council of Europe is much more concerned about respecting the rights of Russian citizens than those government structures in Russia that are actually called upon to protect these rights. While Russia has not yet withdrawn from the Council of Europe (which is very likely in the current situation), the Council of Europe and its judicial system represented by the ECHR remains essentially the only authority to which we can appeal in the hope of finding protection from the arbitrariness of the authorities .” According to Sozaev, “ The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe always expresses serious concern - this, unfortunately, is the only opportunity on their part to do anything . And it’s clear why - lawyers in the Council of Europe do not understand what propaganda of homosexuality is, how you can promote someone to become a homosexual person .”

Law enforcement

Article 6.21 of the Code of Administrative Offenses is still used quite rarely in the wake of past actions. In Moscow, for the first time, charges under this article were brought last year against LGBT activist Alexei Davydov, who was detained during a picket near the building of the Russian State Children's Library with a poster “Being gay is normal,” and five other people detained with him (this was the only case of charges under this article noted by OVD-Info in Moscow for the year).

In this context, the decision of the magistrate of court district No. 423 of the Tverskoy district of Moscow to pay compensation to LGBT activist Irina Fedotova (Fet), sentenced to a fine for a single picket against the Ryazan region law on “homosexual propaganda”, adopted back in 2006, was unprecedented.

Events in defense of LGBT rights often become a reason for detention even without the application of the relevant article: according to OVD -Info , in 2013 in Moscow the relative number of events on this topic at which detentions occur was 7.1% (in 2012 - 0. 9%), the number of arrests on them is 11.4% (in 2012 - 1.2%). The average number of arrests per event in support of LGBT people in 2013 was 13.9. In St. Petersburg, over the same period, the share of people detained at LGBT events out of the total number of people detained at mass events was 12.1%; the number of LGBT events with arrests was 7.1% of the total. The average number of arrests per LGBT event in St. Petersburg is 18.7.

Much more often, the article is used by regional authorities to refuse approval of events. As recently as October 1, the Moscow authorities banned the holding of an LGBT march for one hundred people, since “ the information contained in the text of the notification about holding a public event gives reason to assume that the goals of the planned march violate the prohibitions provided for in federal laws by Article 6.21 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation ” ; “holding a public event by the specified group of citizens in places open to the public will cause moral harm to children and adolescents who become their unwitting witnesses, offend religious and moral feelings, humiliate the human dignity of other citizens, violate their rights and freedoms, which will cause a negative reaction from society and may provoke illegal actions on the part of persons who do not share the views of their participants”; and in addition, holding a procession “will interfere with the movement of pedestrians and violate the rights of citizens not participating in it .”

In Moscow, bans on such events in general were actually a response to the campaign to protect freedom of assembly, which LGBT activists announced after the law was passed. Activists submitted notifications about holding events with the aim of “expressing the opinion of the LGBT community in defense of the heart of the journalist of the TV channel “ Russia-1 ” Dmitry Kiselev from burning and burying in the ground”, “dissemination of objective scientific data in society about homosexual relationships in the animal world”, “ speeches by the LGBT community in support of raising pensions for citizens of the Russian Federation”, “speeches against the exploitation of homosexual reindeer by Santa Claus in Western countries”, “speeches against discrimination against blue trees on New Year’s Eve”, “speeches by gays and lesbians against global warming on the territory of the Russian Federation “and even “expressions of support and calls to follow the statements of Russian President V.V. Putin on non-discrimination of athletes and spectators of the Olympic Games in Sochi on the basis of nationality, race and sexual orientation, made on October 28, 2013.” was planned A march of bearded women and men named after Conchita Wurst . All these notifications were rejected, activists appealed them in the courts and, after recognizing the bans as legal, sent complaints to the ECHR (some events, the bans of which were recognized as legal by the Moscow City Court, are listed on the GayRussia website). However, not all the stated topics of the events sound as absurd as those listed above - for example, on September 27, activists of the Moscow Gay Pride appealed to the ECHR the ban on holding a rally in support of legislative tightening of punishment for hate crimes against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people . Activists in Kostroma and Arkhangelsk act in a similar way. particular attention LGBT activists paid to the Olympics as the main international event in Russia after the law was passed. The gay pride parade in Sochi was banned on the same grounds. After March 2014, the law came into force in Crimea, and gay pride parades were banned in Simferopol and Sevastopol.

An interesting story happened with the coordination of LGBT actions in Kostroma in June. on The gay march June 1 was immediately refused due to the celebration of Children's Day in the city. The procession, planned for June 2, was unexpectedly approved (though not in the place where the organizers wanted), but the approval was later withdrawn due to a sewerage accident . After lengthy legal proceedings, Nikolai Alekseev managed to have declared illegal. both refusals

The law on propaganda was also used to suppress events, as happened in St. Petersburg on June 29, 2013, on the territory of Hyde Park was supposed to take place on the Champ de Mars, where the LGBT Pride : the chairman of the organizing committee was informed that, based on some complaints from citizens, After the participants saw “homosexual propaganda” in the posters, the police were given a decision to stop the action, after which the police began to detain people. A total of 54 people were detained. A similar event in 2014 was held peacefully, but one activist was detained for a poster that representatives of the local legality committee saw as propaganda of non-traditional sexual orientation.

Some LGBT activists , focusing on the established legislative and law enforcement practice, prefer when holding events to generally move away from symbols and even words directly related to LGBT topics . As Maximum Center, told OVD-Info Sergei Alekseenko, head of the Murmansk LGBT organization , recently all their public events “were organized in such a way that there were not even words with the root “homo” or “LGBT”. We are trying to avoid these words, so that we would not be accused of violating this law." “We have not had a single refusal, but we do not announce actions specifically as LGBT, we often submit notifications for actions against xenophobia in society in general, and not just against homophobia,” says Alekseenko. “We don’t come out with rainbow flags, we don’t come out with some harsh slogans, as they do in St. Petersburg and Moscow, especially ultra-activists . We are of a moderate kind. We are not trying to make a provocation, we want people to see and thought again." According to him, usually the authorities do not refuse them to hold an event. Flash mob on May 17 in one of Hyde parks in Murmansk were torn down, but, as Alekseenko believes, “this was the quirk of the head of the district administration, on whose territory Hyde Park is located , who said that Hyde parks are in America, and here is a playground for normal people - get out, they say” . Despite the fact that events in Hyde Parks do not require notification, LGBT activists in Murmansk still submit notifications, since in such cases the administration is obliged to ensure safety. “If we don’t submit a notification, then we must ensure security ourselves,” Alekseenko explains. “But who knows? One person could come with a rotten egg, or maybe a crowd.” I would not want any injuries on either side. We are trying to protect ourselves and the people who come to our events.”

Not just stocks

The law banning propaganda of “non-traditional sexual relations” among minors has been repeatedly used to persecute specific people without any connection with public street events. In the Khabarovsk Territory, the editor-in-chief of the local newspaper “Young Far East”, Alexander Suturin, was sentenced to a fine of 50 thousand rubles for publishing an interview with geography teacher Alexander Ermoshkin, who was fired from his job for LGBT activism . Suturin was accused of violating Part 2 of Article 6.21 - on propaganda through the media, which already entails a much larger fine than participation in the event. In May of this year, charges were brought against Murmansk activist Violetta Grudina due to the fact that minors were discovered in the Maximum Center group on the VKontakte social network, of which she is one of the administrators.

In addition, Elena Klimova, a journalist from Nizhny Tagil, project the author of the “Children-404” ” on the VKontakte social network about homosexual teenagers, was accused of creating “ a page promoting non-traditional sexual relationships . A statement of violation was filed by St. Petersburg deputy Vitaly Milonov. However, the Dzerzhinsky District Court of Nizhny Tagil terminated the proceedings due to the fact that the administrative protocol against Klimova was drawn up with violations.

In addition to the fact that LGBT activists are subject to persecution both in court and out of court, authorities often do not cooperate with them in investigating crimes. Thus, in Voronezh, the court did not satisfy the application regarding the inaction of the police filed by activists Pavel Lebedev and Andrei Nasonov, who were injured as a result of an attack on an LGBT picket. And Nikolai Alekseev, who was attacked in Kostroma, was refused to initiate a criminal case.